A Study of 16th Century Western Books on Korea: The Birth of an Image

VI. Principal Navigations
During the early stages of the Tudor dynasty, England was in political and religious turmoil. Accordingly, most of the publications leading up to the mid-16th century were related to the Reformation, and virtually nothing was published on the foreign markets of the Iberian Peninsula. However, from mid-16th century, the climate became conducive to the publication of new material on Asia, as more and more merchants, particularly in Plymouth, and intellectuals in London argued for the expansion of England's textile markets abroad.

The person who steered England towards the notion of the maritime empire was Richard Eden. Eden was a geologist by trade and had long been a stout advocate of English colonial expansion. In publishing A treatyse of the newe India in 1553, Eden had succeeded in reviving England's long held interest in the foreign colonies of Spain and Portugal. After Eden's death, Richard Willes translated and published several foreign texts on Asia such as Varthema's Travels, Pereira's Chinese accounts, and Maffei's Japanese accounts.

In particular, John Frampton translated Marco Polo's Travels, and is thus credited with being the first Englishman to introduce Korea to the English populace. The publication of the navigational records initiated by Eden got on track in earnest through the efforts of Richard Hakluyt. Although Hakluyt's life is well documented, few are aware of Hakluyt's contribution to the introduction of Korea to not only England but to all of Europe as well. In truth Hakluyt was instrumental in introducing to Protestant Europe the particulars about Korea, including its geography and culture. Hakluyt was an avid collector of Spanish and Portuguese maritime materials and, using Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi as a model, he published his Principal Nativation in 1589. This single volume book mainly dealt with English navigational records. Therefore, with the exception of the segment on travels to the Middle East, the first edition of Hakluyt's work did not include information directly related to Asia or Korea. Hakluyt's personal involvement with the East India Company, set the stage for England's maturity into a formidable seafaring world power.

In early 1580, Hakluyt realized that the Far East market could open up new opportunities for the exportation of England's wool products, and he determined that if he were to convince the English public, he had to educate them first. In the following years, Hakluyt devoted much of his time and effort to overseeing the translation and publication of scores of Portuguese and Spanish books on the Far East. In 1589, Hakluyt sponsored Richard Park's translation and publication of Mendoza's Historia. Subsequently in 1595, Hakluyt first introduced Linschoten's Voyages to English publishers and supported William Phillip's English translation of the work from the Dutch original. This particular work provided the English public with the first detailed geographical information on Korea. In 1601, Hakluyt himself translated Antonio Galvao's The Discoveries of the World.

In 1598, Hakluyt published the first volume of the second edition of Principal Navigation. Volume 2 followed in 1599, and volume 3 in 1600. In terms of content, there was such a disparity between the first and the second edition of Principal Navigation, that for all means and purposes they are separate books. This second edition was the fruit of Hakluyt's exceptional editorial skills and provided the foundations on which England was to eventually forge a maritime empire during the succeeding Elizabethan era. The second edition basically copied the format of the first. Volume 1 deals with materials related to the northeast sea route; volume 2, the southeast route; volume 3, the American continent. In providing a comprehensive overview of the maritime history of Europe during the age of discovery, the second edition of Principal Navigation was a working geographical dictionary. The second edition makes two significant references to Korea. Hakluyt managed to discover the Latin transcript of William of Rubruck's report to French King Louis IX, which had been lost for almost three centuries, and he included English translated segments in volume one of the second edition. In reality, Hakluyt had provided conclusive evidence for future historians that the existence of Korea was known to Europe even before Marco Polo. Furthermore, Hakluyt translated excerpts from 1590-1594 annual Jesuit letters written by Frois and Bresciano, dispatched to Rome and Lisbon, and included them in the second edition. As explained earlier, these annual letters had been translated into various languages throughout Europe between 1593 and 57 and had also been included verbatim in Guzman's Historia de las Missiones. The three letters, referred to as 'accounts' in Hakluyt's book, dealt with Korea's geographical characteristics and with the 1592 War between Japan and Korea. The first of these accounts was basically a translated excerpt from Frois's annual letter of 1590. Frois mentions that Hideyoshi "is to set forth his armies, & to passe to the land of Coray, which the Portugales call Coria, being devided from Japan with an arme of the sea." Frois points out that while the Portuguese in the past erroneously categorized Korea as an island country, it is in fact a peninsula lying merely 20 leagues to the West of Japan and bordering China. The second account is a compilation of translated excerpts from Frois's Annual Letters of 1591 and 1592, published in Rome in 1595. Some 14 typeset pages were devoted to Korea, a considerable amount at the time, and subsequently served as the basis for Martini's and de Halde's studies on Korea in the 17th century. Here Frois expounds upon Korea's geography, culture, and political system, Japan's preparations for war, the anticipated effects of the war on Hideyoshi's political influence in Japan, an assessment of Hideyoshi's political strategem during the whole affair, and personal hopes that the war would provide the Jesuits with a foothold into Korea and China. Although he refrains from making any direct criticism of Japan for instigating the war, Frois does mention that a large number of Koreans were captured by the Japanese and utilized in their war efforts, and that the Koreans were on the cause of justice in their struggles against the aggressors. Frois was particularly impressed by the Korean fleet force and provides a rather lengthy and detailed account of its exploits during sea battles with the Japanese fleet. The third account that deals with Korea is a translated excerpt of the Annual Letters of 1594, published in Milano in 1597. Here Bresciano lodges a stern criticism of Japan for maintaining a military presence in Korea in order to gain a upper hand in its negotiations with China. In sum, Hakluyt selected and translated representative Jesuit letters dealing with Korea for his second edition.

The second edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations was considered the most ideal model of maritime accounts to be published in Europe and was widely read among the European intellectuals of the time. And the 'accounts on Korea' included in the second addition remained the most authoritative introduction to Korea until the publication of Hamel's book in the mid 17th century. VII. Conclusion At the turn of the 16th century, what little Europeans knew about Korea could arguably be summed up in the single sentence on Korea featured in Polo's Travels.

By the end of the century, however, interest in Korea grew, as exemplified in Guzman's Historia de las Missiones, which allotted some 80 pages on the Hermit Kingdom. Sixteenth century Europeans had access to a considerably larger amount of information and knowledge about Korea than did their immediate predecessors; however, this information was nevertheless limited in scope and marred by prevalent biases. One explanation is that in the 16th century, Europeans necessarily saw Korea via the windows of China and Japan. Most of the Portuguese and Spanish documents on China dealt with Korea in reference to the tributary relationship between China and its neighboring countries, and this is the premise on which Europeans of the time understood Korea and other Asian countries in the region. Europe's main source of materials on Korea was the Jesuit missionaries in Japan, whose view of Korea was necessarily tainted by their inherent apprehensions about the unknown kingdom, zeal for Catholic evangelism, and personal hardships during the military invasion. In effect, the predominantly negative image of Korea that permeated the psyche of Europeans of the time is based on this backdrop. In the absence of copyright laws, these materials were readily translated and published in the major cities across Europe and served as the fundamental source on Korea for the Europeans until the publication of Hamel's Journal in the late 17th century.

A Study of 16th Century Western Books on Korea: The Birth of an Image

V. Materials from Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands
The Portuguese consistently referred to Korea either as Cauli or Core, as it was first introduced in Polo's Travels. The first European on record to employ the proper designation "Chosun" was Father Martin de Rada of Spain. Due to the influences of Padroado, Spain had been excluded from trade and missionary labours in Asia, and consequently Spanish historical records related to the Far East were initially few and far between. However, as Spain began to exercise its interest in the Philippines from the later half of the 16th century, Spanish materials on the Far East began to surface. In April of 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi landed on Cebu and attacked the neighboring islands in turn, thus establishing Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. Legazpi was succeeded by Guido de Lavezares upon his death in 1572. Lavezares vigorously promoted trade and missionary work in China and with the assistance of Chinese officials commissioned by the Chinese court to eradicate pirates who pestered China's southern coasts, he was eventually successful in dispatching an envoy to China. Martin Rada, originally of the Augustine order, was a member of Spain's first delegation to China. Based on materials furnished by the Chinese, Rada completed his Relation in Spanish in 1576, which he presented to King Phillip II. In the later part of Chapter 10, Rada explains the tributary system between China and its neighbors in Northeast Asia, and lists Korea as one of the countries that annually submits tributes to China. Rada goes on to explain that foreign envoys to China are required to stay in a designated district in Peking, thus providing more insight into the tributary system than had previous works by Polo and Barbosa. However, he does illustrate the limitation of his knowledge by implying that Chosun and Korea are two separate countries.

Rada's Relation was not published for a long time and remained in transcribed form; consequently, only a handful of Europeans at the time had access to its contents. In particular, Bernardino de Escalante's An Account of the Empire of China (Serville, 1577), the first Spanish book on China, relied heavily on the published Portuguese works of Cruz and Barros, and none of the materials related to Korea in Rada's Relation is included in this particular work. Although Rada and Escalente were both Spaniards who shared a common goal of opening up the Far East for trade and Christianity, they were nevertheless reluctant to share what they knew with others. Rada's manuscripts, however, played a significant role in the publication of another worked entitled Historia, written by Gonzalez de Mendoza. In 1583, Mendoza was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII to write a book on China. Although he had himself never set foot in Asia, he completed Historia in 1585, relying on information provided in works previously published, such as Cruz's Tractato, Rada's Relation, Ramusio's Navigationi et Viaggi, the Jesuit letters, and Escalante's An Account of the Empire of China. Mandoza's Historia was frequently translated up to the late 16th century and reached its 30th edition, thus becoming the most well known work on China in Europe at the time. However, since the book focused mainly on southern China, it did little to promote new insight into Korea at the time.

In 16th century Italy, most of the literature on Asia was being written in Latin and Italian in cities such as Rome and Venice. Francanzano da Montalboddo edited Columbus' and Vespucci's ship logs made during their voyages to the American continent and published an Italian translation in Venice in 1507. Furthermore, Ludovico di Varthema recorded his travel experiences to Southeast Asia and published The itinerary of Ludovico di Varthema of Bologna from 1502 to 1508 in Italian in Rome in 1510, and again in 1511 in Latin. The first Italian book to mention Korea was Navigationi et Viaggi, edited by Ramusio, considered Europe's first modern collection of maritime travel accounts. Borrowing data from his contemporary explorers, Ramusio collected and edited various maritime records available at the time to formulate in Italian a three volume folio entitled Navigationi et Viaggi in 1550, 1559 and 1556. His goal was nothing less than to record for posterity the "위대하고 가장 놀라운 업적: 후에 삽입예정" currently promoted by Portugal and Spain. Since the latter two volumes were already completed in 1553, it is safe to assume that at least the drafts of all three volumes were completed by then. Navigationi et Viaggi is regarded as the first systematic effort to compile and edit the navigational records of the age of discovery. Ramusio placed particular significance on Spanish and Portuguese efforts to establish colonies in India and in the New World. Consequently, volumes 1 and 2 cover materials on Asia and Africa, and volume 3 is devoted to materials related to the New World. Ramusio also translated the original Latin edition of Polo's Travels into Italian and includes it in volume 2, thus publishing Italy's first book to mention Korea.

In addtion, Ramusio also compiled, edited and translated materials from the works of Empoli, da Gama, Tome Pires, Barros, and Duarte Barbosa, including them in volume 1. However, as observed earlier, since the publication of Portuguese sources was under strict supervision of the Portuguese crown, Ramusio was unable to include any other works that mention Korea, other than Polo's Travels. In the late 16th century, Portugal was the only European nation to actively trade with the Far East. With the support of the Vatican, Portugal monopolized the East Asian sea route, in essence controling all maritime trade with the Far East in central locations such as Goa, Malacca, Macao, and Nagasaki. However, from the late 16th century, with the dramatic shifts in the political landscape of Europe, more and more countries began to show an interest in Asia. In 1580, Spain's Phillip II annexed Portugal, thus constructing a vast sea empire stretching as far as Asia and the American continent. The Portuguese had no recourse but to share with Spain their materials on the Far East, which they had so jealousy guarded for so long. Furthermore, both Britain and the Netherlands, having belatedly realized Asia's potential as a viable market, expanded their trade with Asia, and with it information on the Far East, which had previously been limited to Catholic Europe, was steadily being disseminated throughout Protestant Europe as well.

The individual largely responsible for the success of Dutch trade in East Asia was Jan Huygen van Linschoten. He was born in 1563 in the Dutch region of Utrecht. When he was 16, Linschoten left home to team up with his brothers, who were merchants in Spain. It was not long afterwards that Linschoten began to harbor dreams of sailing the high seas. When in 1580 the union between Portugal and Spain made it possible for the Dutch to participate in Portuguese and Spanish trade in India, Linshoten set off to seek his fortune and adventure in Asia, arriving in India on September 21, 1583. Linschoten's official title was assistant to Vincente de Fonseca, recently appointed archbishop of Goa. Based on his 5-year experience in Goa, Linshoten published his Travel Notes in 1595 upon his return to the Netherlands. The short segment on Korea in Travel Notes is as follows: ..so stretches the coast from Japan again to the north, recedes after that inward, northwest ward, to which Coast those from Japan trade with the Nation which is called Cooray, from which I have good, comprehensive and true information, as well as from the navigation to this Country, from the navigators (he calls them pilots) who investigated the situation there and sailed there. Although Linschoten's above claim is doubtful, Travel Notes is significant in that it was the first book written in Dutch to properly refer to Korea as "Chosun." Linschoten's Voyages followed in 1596. The first edition of Voyages, published in Dutch, details the sea route from Europe to East Asian India, the Strait of Malacca, the Malay Islands, and the Chinese Coast. Linschoten himself had never traveled to the Far East, and the segments on China and Japan were based on materials compiled by Dirck Gerritsz, a fellow countryman who had the nickname of Chinaman, and books written by Maffei and Mendoza. Linschoten mentions Korea way into the Japanese segment. He explains that while Korea is situated in close proximity to China, with a north latitude of 34 and 35 degrees, virtually nothing is known about the country. Although reference to Korea is limited to its geographical location, Linschoten's book nonetheless played an important role in the opening of trade between the Netherlands and East Asia. In late 16th century, the Dutch sought to reach Asia from the (as yet uncharted) northern sea route. Lischoten was himself confident that such a route existed and personally lead the exploration of this region on two separate occasions, in 1594 and in 1595. Daunted by the failure of the first exploration to discover the northern sea route, the Dutch decided on the sea route previously established by the Portuguese and dispatched a fleet to India in 1595. Although Linschoten's Voyages was published in 1596, his sea chart had already published a year earlier, and the Dutch fleet embarked on its voyage to East Asia relying on Linschoten's charts.

The publication of Linschoten's Voyages provided a significant turning point in Europe's maritime history, for it was largely due to the publication of this book that the sea route to India and the Far East, previously known only to the Portuguese, became available to all Europeans. Not long after the first edition of Linschoten's Voyages was published, it was translated into several languages. The English and German edition came out in 1598, the Latin edition came out in 1599 in Frankfurt and Amsterdam, and the French edition was published in 1610. Among these the original Dutch edition and the French translation reached second edition. Frequently translated and widely read by Europeans of the time, Linschoten's work made a significant contribution to ushering Protestant Europe into the age of discovery.

A Study of 16th Century Western Books on Korea: The Birth of an Image

IV. Jesuit Letter Books
Jesuit letters from Japan provided Europe with its first real glimpse of Korea. Excerpts from these letters were transcribed and widely distributed among Catholic monasteries in Europe during the 16th century; however, it is important to note that these were not initially by and large made available to the general public at the time. Somewhat belatedly realizing the enormous propaganda potential of these letters for promoting public interest in and support of missionary work in Asia, the Society of Jesus eventually published the letters in book format. However, these collections of Jesuit letters are problematic in several respects: first and foremost, the Society of Jesus exercised extreme caution in their determination of which letters to make public.

Secondly, determining the western equivalents for terminologies relating to Asian systems and customs proved to be no easy task, not only for the original composers of these letters but also for those assigned to translate them into European languages. Thirdly, the contents of the published versions did not always accord with the original transcripts. The Jesuit letters were originally composed in Portuguese or Spanish and translated into Latin, Italian, French, etc. for publication, which provided the Jesuit authorities with some editorial and interpretive leeway. It was not uncommon for the published versions to include details that were not in the original transcripts themselves. To further complicate matters, zealots of the faith who scrutinized the original transcripts regularly edited out portions they deemed detrimental to the missionary cause, leading many historians to question the credibility of the published versions of the letters. Despite these apparent limitations, however, these collections of letters published by the Society of Jesus proved to be an effective medium through which 16th century Europeans could obtain the latest information on the Far East.

The first of these collections of letters, composed in Italian, was published in 1552 in Rome. The bulk of the letters in this particular collection were those dispatched from India. Subsequently the collection of letters from India, originally written in Portuguese or Spanish, were translated into a number of languages in Rome, Venice, and scores of other cities in Northern Europe. By the 1560s public interest in the Indian letters began to wane and they were eventually superceded by the collection of letters from Japan. In particular, when Frois was assigned the task of writing annual letters, the Japanese letters began to be set as the model for all Jesuit letters. Most of the letters from Japan were compiled in Goa and sent to Coimbra, where they were transcribed and sent to Rome and to various Jesuit monasteries throughout Europe. The first collection of Jesuit letters that dealt comprehensively with Japan was published in Coimbra in Spanish in 1565. In 1570, the Jesuit priests in Coimbra published some 1000 copies of the collection of Jesuit letters in Portuguese and distributed them for free, and in 1575 a Spanish translation was published in Alcara, Spain. In addition, the Italian version of the Japanese letters was first published in Rome in 1578. Thereafter, annual supplements of the Japanese letters were published on a regular basis. Annual Letters of Japan, which had made a substantial contribution to the introduction of Korea to Europe, was first published in 1593.

The first of these to make a reference to Korea was written by Frois in 1590, and it was translated into Italian and French and published in Rome, Milano, and Paris. The 1591 and 1592 annual letters in which Korea is featured in earnest were originally written by Frois in Spanish, but it was translated into Italian, French, and Latin and published in Rome, Milano, Venice, Douai, among others in 1595 and 1596. Furthermore, a letter written by Father Orantino Bresciano in 1594 and sent to Aquaviva, then General of the Society of Jesus, includes materials on the 1592 War between Japan and Korea, and the Italian version and the French version were published in Milano and Antwerp respectively in 1597. Most of the materials related to Korea between 1590 and 1594 were written by Frois and translated into most of the major languages in Europe.

Furthermore, English translations of these letters were included in Hakluyt's 1599 edition of Principal Navigations and were cited almost in their entirety in Guzman's Historia de la Missiones, published in 1601. This is arguably the most authoritative study on Korea to date since Marco Polo first used the term Cauli in reference to Korea. A more extensive examination of Frois's letters will be provided in the upcoming section on Hakluyt. Subsequent letters that included information on Korea continued to be published in Europe. However, the 1594, 1595, and 1596 installments of the Annual Letters of Japan fail to mention Cespedes's visit to Korea. They provide only passing references to the 1592 War and to the Korean prisoners of war. Therefore, these letters failed to provide any new information on Korea. Around 1600, yearly installments of Annual Letters of Japan were finally compiled and published. In 1598, Dom Theotonio de Braganza, archbishop of Evora and friend of Valignano, published Jesuit Cartas in two volumes. A compilation of some 213 letters, this work is widely recognized as the representative publication of Jesuit letters. This collection is of particular interest because it included the early letters of Vilela and Prenestino, segments of which treat Korea.

In 1601, Guzman published Historia de las Missiones in two volumes. In the process of illuminating the history of the Far East mission, Guzman managed to provide some insight on Korea. Guzman spent most of his adult life serving as the rector of the Spanish Seminary, attached to the Society of Jesus, and as head of the Toledo parish. Although Guzman had never personally set foot in Asia, his close study of annual letters from Japan and the transcripts of Valignano's Historia enabled him to complete Historia de las Missiones. The writing of Historia de las Missiones, which includes numerous letters of the 1590s, is fortuitous in the sense that many of the original letters archived in Spain have since been lost. As stipulated in the title, Guzman's work deals with the missionary works in the West Indies, China and Japan up to 1600. Of the 13 books that comprise the Historia de las Missiones over half are devoted to the mission in Japan. A segment on Korea, some 80 pages in length, appears in Volume 2, Book 12, Chapters 14 to 37 (pages 497 to 576).

Guzman correctly categorizes Korea as a peninsula and explains that Korea borders China to the North and the Tatars and the "barbarians" to the northeast. He states that Korea submits annual tributes to China, is constantly in war with its neighbors, is generally mountainous with great plains stretching up the middle of the peninsula, and cultivates rice and harvests a large amount of fruits and honey. Furthermore, the Koreans roof their dwellings with rice staw, are light skinned, gentle but strong when they have to be, and are adverse to all foreign trade, as well as visitations by foreigners. Guzman also adds some reflections on the backgrounds of the 1592 War between Japan and Korea, the remarkable exploits of Korea's naval forces, China's involvement in the war, and the process through which the peace agreement was reached. To his credit, Guzman does record Cespedes's visit to Korea in Chapter 27. Curiously enough, Historia de las Missiones was the only European book published in the 16th and the 17th century that makes any reference to Cespedes's visit to Korea. According to Guzman's account, Cespedes stayed with the Japanese and their Korean captives during his 18-month long stay in Korea and took a Korean boy back to Japan with him, in preparation for the establishment of a Catholic mission in Korea. In Book 13, Chapter 15, Guzman explains the reasons behind the war between Japan and Korea and emphasizes Korea's potential as a bridgehead into China. As we will see in our examination of Hakluyt's English translation of Frois's letters, Guzman's material on Korea is, by and large, a verbatim recounting of Frois' s annual letters to Rome.

A Study of 16th Century Western Books on Korea: The Birth of an Image

III. Jesuit Letters
Through the Padroado, Portugal was able to monopolize the Catholic mission in the Far East in the late 16th century, and Father Francisco de Xavier set out to fulfill his lifelong dream of bringing the Gospel to the pagans in Asia. It is through these Jesuit efforts that Europeans were able to receive news on Korea in earnest. Reference to Korea began to appear with some regularity in letters sent home by Jesuit missionaries working in Japan, and through these letters, Europeans of the time were able to piece together at least a tentative description of the culture and geography of Korea. However, there is some dispute among historians as to the exact time in which Jesuit priests first began to make references to Korea in their letters.

According to Donald Lach, Luis Frois was the first Jesuit missionary to mention Korea, having written in 1562 that Korea played an intermediary role in the transmission of Buddhism from China to Japan; however, this argument must be discarded. Jesuit missionaries had the opportunity to hear about Korea even at the initial stages of their missionary labours in the Far East. Although Xavier's letters from Asia made no mention of Korea, he first learned of Korea in December of 1547 from a Japanese named Ajiro in Malacca, where he prepared for his mission to the Far East. In addition, two Spanish priests, Cosme de Torres and Juan Fernandez, were informed by Ajiro and two other Japanese who accompanied him that "The Japanese also trade with another people, further away than China, to the east, called Corea. From there they bring silver and marten skins [...] they bring back cotton fabrics." Father Juan Ruiz de Medina, who researches Jesuit documents in Rome, conjectures that Father Nicolao Lancillotto of Italy, dutifully reported these encounters in his letter to Rome from Goa, and thus the first Jesuit news of Korea would have reached Lisbon by July of 1594 and would have certainly found its way to Rome by September of the same year. It is also feasible that in 1549, Xavier, Torres, and Fernandez might have heard about Korea from a Chinese captain en route to Japan. It is also certain that Xavier's party of Jesuit missionaries had access to intermittent news about Korea once they arrived in Japan in July, 1549. Furthermore, Xavier crossed paths with Korean envoys dispatched to Japan during his sojourn in Hirado in the spring of 1550, and in Yamaguchi between November of 1550 and September of 1551. If this is true then the first modern contact on record between Europeans and Koreans, with the exception of the Gores, can be attributed to Xavier and his party in 1550.

What had compelled Jesuit missionaries to make frequent references to Korea in their letters to Rome was, of course, their aspirations to bring the Gospel to the Korean Peninsula. The first attempt by the Society of Jesus to initiate missionary labours in Korea was in 1566. That year, Torres, then in charge of the mission in Japan with the departure of Xavier, dispatched Father Gaper Vilela to Korea, and Father Vilela did indeed initiate attempts to reach Korea. However, in his letter to Lisbon from Cochin, dated February 4, 1571, Vilela reported that due to the civil war in Japan, he was regretfully unable to make his trip to Korea at that time.

Subsequently the Jesuit missionaries in Japan made continuous references to Korea in their official reports to Rome. Significant among these was Vilela's November 3 report from Goa to Francisco de Borja, General of the Society of Jesus, in which the following observations on Korea were included: According to my information, this kingdom is said to extend as far as some very high mountains, and beyond them live people of white race, with whom however they have no dealings on account of the many dangerous wild animals that live in the mountains. It may be conjectured that these lands beyond could be Germany. The Mongols in question are said to be a friendly race. It will be five years soon since Father Cosme de Torres decided to send a Father there to see what might be done, and his choice fell on me. I set out, but met with much fighting on the road, Japanese battling against other Japanese, which prevented me from achieving my purpose. I should rather say, for it is very sure, that God so willed it, since he wished for the fruit which was gathered afterwards through my staying in Japan. That other treasure awaits the man who more deserves to win it. If Fathers were there, great service, I think, might be done for the Lord. And one can get there easily and with little trouble by the help of the kings of Japan. I mean with letters [from them], for a certain king is known there, so that this would suffice to be able to get into the land, and the Fathers who would go to live there could be assisted from Japan with whatever was necessary, for every year Japanese merchants visit the land. Entry too into China could be secured through the harbour of this kingdom which is very near to the city called Beijing, where the king of China lives. And if we go in, great benefits would follow, which will only appear with time.

The Jesuit missionaries indicated that they obtained information on Korea from Japanese merchants who frequented the shores of Korea. Information on Korea thus acquired was necessarily limited and superficial in nature. For instance, in referring to Korea, they retained the medieval designation of "the Kingdom of Corea" instead of "Chosun," the official title of the contemporary sovereign state. Furthermore, in quite erroneous thinking that Korea bordered Germany to the North, they considered Korea to be a viable route to Europe. For 16th century Europeans, Korea seemed like the final frontier that could bring a meaningful closure to the age of discovery. However, they also understood that establishing a Christian mission there would be a formidable task, a point accentuated by their perception of Korea as marked by mountainous terrain filled with lions and tigers and peopled by fierce warriors skilled in archery, spear throwing, and horsemanship. These initial misgivings about Korea notwithstanding, Vilela insisted that the Koreans were by and large a friendly people, and that although their language was different from Chinese or Japanese, they were able to communicate with one another via a common written language. Vilela maintained that despite the failure of the initial attempt to reach Korea in 1566, further attempts should be made. This November 3, 1571 letter provided the most comprehensive reference to Korea to date, and its subsequent inclusion in the Jesuit Cartas, published in Evora in 1598, made a substantial contribution to the introduction of Korea in Europe. Vilela's ulterior motive was, of course, to procure permission and support for his plans to establish a mission in Korea. However, his plans were ultimately rejected on the grounds that the success of the mission in Japan took priority over all others, and no missionaries could be spared to be dispatched to Korea. Furthermore, Vilela had lost his strongest supporter when Father Torres died in Japan in 1570. By 1572, both Vilela and the General of the Society of Jesus had passed away, and with them also died any hope for establishing a Catholic mission in Korea in the immediate future.

In the late 16th century, with the noted increase in the number of Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants who visited Japan, it was inevitable that some Europeans would find their way into Korea, albeit more accidentally than intentionally. The earliest European accounts of visitations to Korea were indicative of the prevailing biases about Korea and its people harbored by the Europeans at the time. The first recorded European sighting of Korea occurred in October, 1578. Domingo Monteiro, captain major of a ship owned by Francisco Lobo, had already visited Japan on two previous occasions starting in 1576. He sailed from Macao toward Japan in July of 1578. Although the exact number of crew and passengers is unknown, there were at least 14 on board including Father Alfonso Lucena of Portugual and Father Antonio Prenestino of Italy. Monterio and his party left Macao 11 days behind schedule, and the cruise was uneventful for the next 20 days. However, 40 to 50 leagues short of their destination in Japan, weather began to change for the worse, and an unexpected typhoon drove the ship off course. Having lost its rudder, the ship drifted aimlessly on the open waters until it approached "a point on the Korean coast a musket shot away." Monterio, who had considered Koreans to be barbarous convened an emergency meeting, and ultimately determined to die at sea rather than risk landing on Korean shores. Fortunately for them, they arrived in Japan without further incident. Three months after this incident, Prenestino provided the following account in his letter composed in Portuguese and sent to Lisbon on November 8, 1578: Korea, a barbaric and inhospitable people, desires to have dealings with no other people. and they say that in the past a Portuguese junk wished to stop here, but these wicked people took their boat and all who were in it, and they were lucky to get away without being burned alive. As well exemplified in the letters of Vilela and Prenestino, the Jesuit missionaries and the Portuguese merchants harbored a rather negative impression of Korea. Prenestino's misfortune off the shores of Korea was well known among the Jesuit missionaries in Japan at the time. It was mentioned in Frois's Die Geschichte Japans. The account was also included in Annual Letters published by the Jesuits in 1598, and widely read throughout Europe at the time. The fact that these letters were published is in and of itself notable, in view of the Jesuit policy not to publicize materials that presented a negative view of Asia.

Following 1580, Korea once again received European attention, as the Jesuits in Japan began to chronicle the war between Japan and Korea. The bulk of these documents were written by Frois. It is uncertain at what point the Jesuit priests in Japan first caught on to the possibility of Japan's invasion of Korea. But in any case, they would certainly have realized this by 1580. In a meeting with Oda Nobunaga, who was supporting the Jesuit mission in Japan, Frois, Alessandro Valignano, and Soldo Organtino had the opportunity to listen to Nobunaga's ambitious plans to invade Korea and China. Furthermore in his letter dated November 5, 1582, Frois informed Claudio Aquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus, that Nobunaga "was planning to build then a great armada to go and conquer China and share out all his territories among his sons."

Frois went on to state that although using the war to further the Catholic cause in the region was not a particularly desirable proposition, the impending war, however, would most certainly provide the opportunity for the long sought evangelism of China and Korea. Since it took some two years for correspondence to traverse the distance from Nagasaki to Lisbon, it is likely that the leaders of the Jesuit brotherhood in Europe would have known of the possibility of war by 1584. After Nobunaga's assassination in 1582, the Jesuit missionaries were able to hear of Japan's plans for the invasion of Korea from Hideyoshi, who held the title of Kanpaku (Regent). On May 4, 1586, Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gasper Coelho, Frois and some 30 followers of the faith gained an audience in Osaka with Hideyoshi, who provided them with details on the planned invasion. The Jesuits were reported to have pledged their support to Hideyoshi. Coelho agreed to Hideyoshi's request for two battleships for the invasion of Korea, and added that if necessary additional support from bases in India could be made available. For his part Hideyoshi stressed that once China and Korea was conquered, he would give the Jesuits a free hand in the evangelism of the region. However, Hideyoshi's lip service to the missionaries proved to be an astute political gesture. In July of 1587, Hideyoshi, ever mindful of the growing influence of the Catholics in Japan, decreed the expulsion of Coelho and all the other Jesuit missionaries in Japan on the pretense of national security, although he was to postpone his own orders in a short time. In any event, Frois, in his October 17, 1586 letter, dutifully reported back to Europe about his audience with Hideyoshi, and consequently the Jesuits in Europe were privy to Japan's invasion plans a considerable time before the actual war in Korea took place. The May 4 audience has generated a considerable amount of interest, and controversy, among historians through the years.

Catholic historians maintain that Coelho's promise of military assistance for Japan's war effort was motivated by his aspiration to procure Hideyoshi's support for the Catholic mission in the region, and that he honestly did not believe that Hideyoshi would actually carry out his plans to invade Korea. However, such conjectures lose their credibility in light of the collective zeal of the Jesuits in establishing a mission in Korea and of Cohelho's personal reputation as someone willing and able to go to extreme measures for the Catholic cause in the region. Frois, Cohelho, and the other Jesuit missionaries in Japan knew only too well the enormous opportunity presented by Japan's successful invasion of the Korean Peninsula. This sentiment was also echoed in Valignano's letter to Aquaviva from Nagasaki, dated February 15, 1592. Valignano was in Japan just prior to the war as visitor of the Jesuit missions in Asia. Valignano concluded that Hideyoshi's plan to invade Korea was motivated by his wish to subdue the civil strife plaguing Japan, also adding that Hideyoshi might, in the end, prove to be God's instrument in the evangelism of China and Korea. However, it must also be noted that although the Jesuits did not openly censure Hideyoshi for his war, they did not trust him either and were uncomfortable with the idea of reaping the fruits of human violence, albeit for the Catholic cause. They were merely making the best of a bad situation, so to speak.

The 1592 War between Japan and Korea provided westerners with their first opportunity to visit Korea. Under orders of Gomaz, the Jesuit Vice Provincial, Cespedes arrived in Korea with a Japanese monk for the purposes of administering to the Japanese troops. He stayed there for approximately 18 months, until May or April of 1595, thus being on record as the first westerner to visit the Korean Peninsula. In addition, Cespedes made a brief stopover on the island of Tsushima, thus becoming the first European to introduce the existence of the island to the West. However, Cespedes failed to make any significant strides in the introduction of Korea to the West. His two letters written during his sojourn in Korea were filled with his personal impressions of the battles and of Korea's severe winter weather, and he made absolutely no mention of the culture, political system, and geography of Korea. In addition to their periodic letters, the Jesuits also left a variety of materials on the Far East. Most of these materials were compiled by Jesuits such as Valignano and Frois, during their missionary labours in Japan. Based on his visits to Japan on three occasions, Valignano completed the three volumes of Sumario de las cosas de Japon in 1577, 1580 and 1583, which later served as the basis for his Historia; however, the manuscript was not published during the 16th century and was not made available except to a selective few in the Jesuit brotherhood. Neither Sumario de las cosas de Japon nor Historia makes any mention of Korea. Besides this, Giovanni Pietro Maffei was commissioned by the Pope to write Historiarum Indicarum in 1588, based on his close study of Valignano's Historia and on his own encounter with Japanese boys who arrived in Rome in 1582. Along with Mendoza's Historia, Maffei's work is considered one of the most authoritative studies on the Far East in the 16th century, and it was translated into several languages and widely read in major cities throughout Europe at the time. Maffei's Historia mainly deals with the Portuguese conquest of Asia and the West Indies and the accomplishments of the Jesuits in India, and does not offer much on Japan and China. While Books 6 and 12 are devoted to China and Japan respectively, there is no mention of Korea anywhere in the book. This is more than likely due to fact that one third of Historiarum Indicarum is comprised of earlier letters, written between 1549 and 1574, which make no reference to Korea. It is also worth noting that Maffei relied heavily on Valignano's Historia and Pinto's Travels, neither of which make any reference to Korea.

Other than the Jesuit letters from Japan, the only material that mentions Korea is Frois's Die Geschichte Japans. As previously examined, Frois's book, written between 1549 and 1578, does make some passing references to Korea; however, it was not until 1926 that it was finally translated into German and published, and consequently it made little contribution to the introduction of Korea to Europe in the 16th century.

Study of 16th Century Western Books on Korea: The Birth of an Image

II. Travel Literature of Portugal
The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1493 secured Portugal's hegemony in Asia, giving it a free hand in Christian missionary labours and trade in the region. In 1498, Vasco Da Gama successfully reached the Indian port of Calicot, thus spearheading Europe's eventual venture into the Far East. Portuguese merchants and missionaries soon followed, producing various records on Asia. Portuguese records of the 16th century share two significant features: first, insofar as Portugal's contact with Asia was limited to India, Malacca, Molucca Islands, and Southeast Asia, the Portuguese records on Asia provided little new information on the Far East. Secondly, since the beginning of the age of discovery, the Portuguese Crown jealously guarded important information on the spice trade and the Far East, and as a matter of policy kept these records from the general public. These records remained in their original transcribed format until they were ultimately published in recent times. However, even without these restrictions, these 16th century Portuguese records had very little to say about Korea and would not have made a significant contribution to the introduction of Korea to Europe.

Along with the problem of the innate scarcity of information on Korea evident in these records, there is also the interpretive problem of the Portuguese use of the designation "Gores." Since Diogo Lopes de Sequeira's travel to Malacca in 1509, the Portuguese were known to have been in frequent contact with the Gores in Southeast Asia, a fact well documented in records of the time. Although some historians maintain that the Gores were in fact Koreans living on the island of Ryukyu, the 16th century Portuguese did not realize who the Gores really were. Consequently 16th century records on the Gores also made no contribution the introduction of Korea to Europe.

The first western literature on Asia written during the age of discovery was Tome Pires's Suma Oriental. And Book of Duarte Barbosa soon followed. Both books were written in Portuguese. Summa Oriental is the first recorded European manuscript in book format that mentions the Gores, whereas Book of Duarte Barbosa, written in 1518 by the brother-in-law of Magellan, makes a passing reference in Chapter 126 on the tribute-based diplomatic relationship between China and its immediate neighbors. However, both books were not published for a long time, remaining in transcript form, and they actually contributed little to the dissemination of new knowledge about the Far East at the time. However, they would go on to serve as a basis for numerous books on the Far East published in the late 16th century. Contemporary Portuguese historians such as Fernao Lopes de Castanheda, Joao de Barros, Damiao de Gois, and Jeronimo Osorio, used their influence in the royal court to gain access to such classified materials as Suma Oriental and Book of Duarte Barbosa, on the basis of which they were able to fomulate the history of the Portuguese empire in East Asia. Their works on Asia, which began in 1551 and took approximately 20 years in the making, focused primarily on India, South East Asia, and the Molucca Islands, with only intermittent references to China. In particular, Barros's Decades, published in 1552, conceding that the northern shores of China had yet to be properly charted by the Portuguese navigators, partitions the entire Asian continent into 9 territories, allocating the Chinese coast, Ryukyu, and Japan to the 9th territory. Barros, however, makes no mention of Korea. In his third edition of Decades, published in 1563, Barros provides a more detailed introduction of South East Asia, China, Burma, Sumatra, and the Molucca Islands. To his credit, Barros included in this edition a comprehensive introduction of China, based on information provided by the Chinese, as well as personal accounts from his Chinese servant. Barros writes at length about China's culture and customs, the names and characteristics of China's 15 main provinces, it's main cities, units of measurement, diplomatic relations with other countries, and also provides a detailed historical account of the first Portuguese ambassador dispatched to China, but says nothing about Korea. In contrast, Gois and Osorio merely cited previously published materials by Castenheda and Barros, and thus failed to contribute any new information on Asia.

In the mid-16th century Chirsitovao Vieyra, Vasco Calvo, and others who had been incarcerated by the Chinese authorities for smuggling, provided records on the diplomatic relationship between China and its neighboring countries, China's justice system, and details about Ryukyu and the 15 provinces. In particular, Galeote Pereira, who was captured by the Chinese for smuggling in March of 1549, only to escape in 1552, provided valuable insight into China. His writing, which provided a lengthy explication of China's justice system and its foreign relations, was frequently translated and widely distributed throughout Europe. It was translated into Italian in Venice, circa 1565, and into English by Richard Willes in 1577. It was also subsequently included in the Principal Navigation of Richard Hakluyt. Based on Pereira's accounts, Gaspat da Cruz published Tractado in 1569. With nine tenth of the book specifically devoted to China, Cruz's book is considered to be the first book on China published in Europe. However, since Cruz was primarily concerned with China's justice and administrative systems, no mention of Korea was made.

A Study of 16th Century Western Books on Korea: The Birth of an Image

I. Introduction
Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum orbis terrarum, one of the most definitive world maps of the 16th century, positioned the Far East at the right uppermost corner, the most distant region from the Iberian Peninsula. This was indicative of how little medieval Europe understood about the vast continent that lay to it's east. Subsequent European maps of the late 16th century demonstrated considerably more accuracy and detail in their treatment of the Far East, and to a large measure this development was due to the efforts to discover the "Indias," the spread Catholicism to the pagan world, and typological innovations.

As new sources of information became available under this backdrop, Europeans began to overcome the limitations of medieval knowledge of the Far East, replacing it with a more modernistic understanding of the region. The 16th century was not only the period during which Europeans steadily began to amass empirical knowledge about the Far East, but also the first time since Marco Polo's return from his historical travels to China that information on Korea began to disseminate throughout Europe. Although Korea was mentioned in only a handful of manuscripts and publications of the time, these efforts nevertheless lay the foundation for western literature on Korea up to the 19th century. Based on these accounts, the West was able to formulate an image of Korea, even before its ports were officially opened to foreign trade in the centuries to come.

The purpose of this article is to introduce 16th century European literature on Korea and to examine how Korea is depicted in these documents. This examination of 16th century western literature on Korea will yield valuable insight into 'the birth of a national image,' which has in recent years emerged as an important facet of studies in international history. The authors note that since the primary objective of this study is the introduction of newly discovered literature on Korea, materials will be discussed in the order of their respective dates of publication.

Scholarly research works on the process by which Korea was introduced to Europe have been few and far between, although passing references to Korea have been made in bibliographical studies as well as numerous studies pertaining to maritime records and Jesuit letters. Henri Cordier of France, Armando Cortesao of Portugal, and C. R. Boxer of England do provide sketchy overviews of how Korea was first introduced to the Europeans, as part of their research on medieval records and navigational logs of the 16th century. Donald Lach's comparatively recent study provides a comprehensive bibliographical examination of western literature on Asia, but only post 17th century works on Korea, such as those by Luis de Guzman, Martino Martini, and Hendrik Hamel, are listed. The situation in Korea fared no better. In 1931 and in 1935 Horace Underwood published the first comprehensive bibliography of old books on Korea written in western languages, and in 1963 M. Gompertz introduced a more extensive list, supplementing Underwood's earlier work. Although these bibliographies are invaluable source of information on western literature on Korea, they, nonetheless, leave much to be desired. For instance, both Underwood and Gompertz list the letters of Father Gregorio de Cespedes, dated 1593, as the earliest western document related to Korea, and both leave out a considerable amount of material on Korea within 16th century European travel literature and the early Jesuit letters.